LIBRARY 

MOVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


THE    STATUE. 


EXERCISES 


AT  THE 


DEDICATION  OF    THE 


STATUE 


OF 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS 

JULY  ?f    191? 


CITY    OF   BOSTON 

PRINTING    DEPARTMENT 

1916 


CITY  OF  BOSTON. 


IN  CITY  COUNCIL,  July  16,  1915. 

Ordered,  That  the  City  Clerk  be  authorized  to  prepare  and 
have  printed  an  edition  of  500  copies  of  a  volume  containing 
an  account  of  the  exercises  at  the  dedication  of  the  Wendell 
Phillips  Memorial;  said  volume  to  be  distributed  under  the 
direction  of  the  Committee  on  Printing,  and  the  expense  to  be 
charged  to  the  appropriation  for  City  Documents. 

Passed.    Approved  by  the  Acting  Mayor  July  19,  1915. 

Attest: 

W.  J.  DOYLE, 

Assistant  City  Clerk. 


CONTENTS 


Page 

INVOCATION  BY  REV.  MONTROSE  W.  THORNTON,  D.  D.,  8 

ADDRESS   BY  ACTING   MAYOR   GEORGE   W.   COLEMAN,  11 

ADDRESS  BY  WILLIAM  DEXTER  BRIGHAM         .       .       .  15 

ADDRESS  BY  FRANK  B.  SANBORN 31 

ADDRESS  BY  WILLIAM  MONROE  TROTTER        ...  36 

ADDRESS  BY  MICHAEL  J.  JORDAN 43 

ORIGINAL   POEM   BY  WILLIAM   LLOYD   GARRISON,   JR.,  52 

HISTORY  OF  WENDELL  PHILLIPS  STATUE  .  54 


PROGRAM 

HON.  GEORGE  W.  COLEMAN,  Acting  Mayor,  will  preside. 
INVOCATION.    MONTROSE  WILLIAM  THORNTON,  D.  D. 

ADDRESSES  ON  MR.  PHILLIPS'  LIFE  WILL  BE  GIVEN 
BY  THE  FOLLOWING  SPEAKERS,  COVERING 
THE  FOUR  PERIODS  OF  HIS  LIFE,  UNDER  THE 
TITLES  OF 

"  Morning. —  Youth  and  Vision." 
WILLIAM  DEXTER  BRIGHAM. 

"Noon.—  The  Abolition  Period." 
FRANKLIN  BENJAMIN  SANBORN. 

"  Afternoon. —  Citizenship  for  the  Colored  American." 
WILLIAM  MONROE  TROTTER. 

"  Evening. —  What  Mr.  Phillips  did  for  Ireland;  also,  his  other 

Philanthropies." 
MICHAEL  J.  JORDAN,  Esq. 

Original  Poem.—  "  Wendell  Phillips." 
WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON,  JR. 

Unveiling  Statue  by  a  lad. 
JOHN  C.  PHILLIPS,  JR. 


Music  by  a  chorus  of  colored  singers  from  the  Boston  churches, 
under  the  direction  of  Dr.  WALTER  O.  TAYLOR  and 
J.  SHERMAN  JONES. 


OPENING  EXERCISES 


The  exercises  of  unveiling  and  dedicating  the 
Wendell  Phillips  statue  by  the  City  of  Boston  were 
opened  by  Mr.  William  D.  Brigham,  as  secretary 
of  the  Wendell  Phillips  Memorial  Association,  who 
introduced  the  Acting  Mayor,  George  W.  Cole- 
man,  president  of  the  City  Council.  Mr.  Coleman 
called  upon  Rev.  Montrose  William  Thornton, 
pastor  of  the  Charles  Street  African  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  for  the  invocation. 


8  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 


DEDICATORY  PRAYER 

BY  THE  REV.  MONTROSE  WILLIAM  THORNTON,  PH.  D. 


Almighty  and  everlasting  God,  who  art  the 
Sovereign  of  the  universe,  and  rulest  the  children 
of  men  as  seemeth  good  in  thy  sight,  look  down, 
we  beseech  thee  in  mercy,  upon  this  historic  gather- 
ing. We  adore  thee,  0  God,  as  the  Lord  of  Hosts. 
We  come  unto  thee  at  this  hour  to  acknowledge 
our  gratitude  for  the  blessings  of  this  day,  the 
anniversary  of  this  nation's  birth  and  the  illus- 
trious lives  of  the  great,  the  patriots  whose  memory 
we  bless  in  these  exercises.  We  thank  thee  and 
adore  thy  name  for  the  gift  of  an  Andrew,  a  Garri- 
son, a  Sumner  and  the  immortal  Wendell  Phillips, 
the  latter  whose  life  we  now  extoll  and  whose  deeds 
we  revere.  In  thy  name  and  by  the  services  that 
bring  us  here,  as  this  shaft  of  bronze  and  marble 
is  unveiled  and  dedicated  to  the  great  cause  for 
which  he  gave  his  precious  life,  we  beseech  thy 
favor  and  pray  as  the  generations  pass  this  way 
their  gaze  upon  this  monument  will  perpetuate  in 
their  souls  the  worth  and  services  of  one  of  thy 
greatest  sons. 

For  him  we  the  living  do  pray;  suffer  not  the 
wicked  to  accomplish  their  ungodly  purposes;  defeat 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  9 

the  designs  and  machinations  of  those  who  would 
invade  the  equal  rights  or  abridge  the  just  privi- 
leges of  the  people. 

May  law  and  order,  justice  and  equity  and  the 
sound  principles  of  thy  Holy  Word  prevail  in  our 
land  and  in  all  the  nations  of  the  earth. 

O  Lord,  put  to  naught  the  counsels  of  those  who 
delight  in  war  and  bloodshed,  and  who  will  adopt 
no  method  to  adjust  disputes  but  that  of  leading 
thousands  into  the  field  of  battle,  and  ushering 
multitudes  unprepared  into  the  presence  of  an 
offended  and  awful  God. 

0  Lord,  hear  our  prayers  for  peace,  for  the  rulers 
of  this  land  and  Commonwealth;  teach  them  and 
those  they  serve  to  cultivate  harmony  and  love; 
make  an  end  of  tumult;  let  all  false  ideas  of  dig- 
nity and  glory  be  buried  in  the  dust,  and  may  all  in 
authority  see  that  it  is  their  greatest  glory  to  legis- 
late and  govern  in  the  fear  of  the  Lord  and  for  the 
peace  and  quiet  of  the  nation. 

Graciously  bless  these  noble  spirits,  the  good  men 
and  women  inspired  in  the  endeavor  of  this  hour, 
who  have  led  forth  this  splendid  undertaking  to 
perpetuate  the  loving  memory  of  their  worthy 
brother,  and  may  the  Wendell  Phillips  Memorial 
Association  live  and  flourish  in  humanitarian  serv- 
ice until  men  everywhere  shall  be  touched  with 
thy  spirit  of  brotherhood  and  all  shall  be  one  with 
thee. 

Our  trust  is  in  thee;   thou  livest  and  reignest  on 


10  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

high.  Oh,  come  down  and  live  and  reign  also 
among  the  people,  and  overrule  their  agitations  to 
thine  own  glory  and  the  furtherance  of  thy  pur- 
poses of  wisdom  and  mercy.  From  this  day  forth 
cause  the  wrath  of  man  to  praise  thee,  and  the 
remainder  of  wrath  do  thou  restrain.  May  peace 
and  harmony  take  the  place  of  discontent  and  com- 
motion, and  may  love  and  good  will  animate  the 
hearts  of  the  children  of  men  everywhere. 

0  thou  prayer-hearing  and  prayer-answering  God, 
hear  our  supplications,  and  grant  us  an  answering 
in  peace  through  Jesus  Christ,  to  whom,  as  the 
Lamb  that  was  slain  to  redeem  us  to  God  by  his 
blood,  be  blessing,  and  honor,  and  glory,  and  power 
forever  and  ever.  Amen. 


THE    SPEAKERS    AT   THE   DEDICATION. 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  11 


ADDRESS 

BY  ACTING  MAYOR  GEORGE  W.  COLEMAN 


It  may  be  interesting  for  you  to  hear  a  little  of 
the  history  of  the  Wendell  Phillips  Memorial  Asso- 
ciation and  concerning  the  statue  to  be  dedicated 
to-day. 

Wendell  PhiUips  died  February  2,  1884.  Soon 
after  that  the  Wendell  Phillips  Association  was 
formed,  with  the  thought  of  raising  money  to  build 
a  hall  for  working  people  as  a  memorial  to  Wendell 
Phillips.  In  1894  the  name  was  changed  to  the 
Wendell  Phillips  Memorial  Association  by  act  of 
the  Legislature,  and  the  funds,  which  had  been 
rather  slow  in  gathering,  were  used  to  purchase  two 
scholarships,  one  in  Harvard  University  and  one 
in  Tufts  College,  to  be  given  to  some  student  who 
showed  promise  of  oratorical  powers.  Soon  after 
this  was  done  the  association  slumbered  for  about 
twenty-five  years.  Then  it  was  revived  in  1911, 
and  Dr.  A.  N.  Abbott  of  South  Boston,  who  was 
treasurer  of  the  original  association,  has  continued 
treasurer  up  to  the  present  time. 

On  the  one  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  birth  of 
Wendell  Phillips,  November  29,  1911,  a  celebration 
of  this  event  was  held  in  Faneuil  Hall  under  the 
auspices  of  the  National  Equal  Rights  League,  an 


12  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

organization  chiefly  of  colored  citizens,  and  the 
New  England  Suffrage  League.  The  suggestion 
was  then  made  that  the  City  of  Boston  erect  a 
statue  in  honor  of  Wendell  Phillips  and  the  matter 
was  brought  to  the  attention  of  the  City  Council 
and  of  Hon.  John  F.  Fitzgerald,  who  was  then  Mayor 
of  Boston,  by  Mr.  Earnest  E.  Smith,  one  of  the  City 
Council.  A  meeting  was  called  by  the  committee 
appointed  at  the  centenary  celebration  of  fifty 
representative  citizens,  who  requested  the  Mayor 
to  provide  for  this  statue.  As  a  result  of  these 
conferences  Mayor  Fitzgerald  sent  a  message  to 
the  City  Council,  requesting  them  to  appropriate 
$20,000  for  the  erection  of  a  statue,  and  the  Council 
heartily  agreed  to  this.  So  that  we  are  indebted  to 
Mayor  Fitzgerald  for  originating  the  order,  as  under 
the  new  charter  all  orders  must  originate  with  the 
Mayor,  and  we  are  indebted  to  the  City  Council 
for  voting  the  money. 

It  was  first  suggested  that  the  money  be  taken  from 
the  Parkman  Fund  left  for  the  beautifying  of  public 
parks,  but  it  was  afterwards  voted  that  the  money 
be  taken  from  the  general  tax  levy,  so  that  the 
humblest  citizen  of  Boston  who  is  a  taxpayer  con- 
tributed his  share  to  the  erection  of  this  monument. 

Repeated  conferences  were  held  by  the  committee 
of  the  Wendell  Phillips  Memorial  Association  with 
the  Art  Commission.  Differences  of  opinion  devel- 
oped as  to  where  the  statue  should  be  located, 
whether  on  Beacon  street  opposite  Walnut,  looking 
down  upon  the  house  where  Mr.  Phillips  was  born, 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  13 

or  on  the  corner  of  Charles  and  Beacon  streets; 
but  it  was  finally  decided  by  concurrent  action  of 
the  Art  Commission  and  the  Park  Commission  that 
the  statue  should  be  located  where  it  is  to-day, 
with  the  beautiful  Public  Garden  for  a  background 
and  facing  the  wide  boulevard  of  Boylston  street, 
and  facing  the  southwest,  as  the  sculptor  desired. 

The  citizens  of  Boston  are  especially  fortunate 
that  the  Art  Commission  chose  for  the  sculptor 
Daniel  Chester  French,  whose  work  in  the  "  Minute 
Man"  at  Concord,  the  statue  of  John  Harvard  in 
Cambridge  and  " Death  Arresting  the  Sculptor"  in 
Forest  Hills  Cemetery  is  so  well  known.  He  is  one 
of  the  most  eminent  living  American  sculptors  and 
has  been  particularly  successful  in  making  an  impres- 
sive statue  and  an  accurate  representation  of  Mr. 
Phillips'  expression  and  figure.  The  cost  of  the 
statue  was  $20,000  and  honors  the  memory  and  per- 
petuates the  influence  of  one  of  Boston's  most 
illustrious  sons,  and  one  who  with  two  or  three 
others  changed  the  world's  history  and  led  to  the 
final  abolition  of  slavery  and  struck  the  shackles 
from  4,000,000  slaves. 

As  a  young  man  I  went  once  to  hear  the  great 
Phillips  speak,  determined  to  discover,  if  I  could, 
the  secret  of  his  oratorical  power.  The  subject  he 
was  announced  to  speak  upon  did  not  particularly 
interest  me  at  the  time,  and  I  thought  I  could  give 
my  whole  attention  to  an  analysis  of  his  speaking 
gifts.  Afterwards  at  home,  when  I  was  asked  what 
I  had  discovered,  I  had  to  admit  that  in  the  flow 


14  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

of  his  smooth  rhetoric  I  had  forgotten  all  about  my 
purpose  to  study  him  and  had  become  absorbed  in 
what  he  was  talking  about.  If  I  remember  cor- 
rectly that  was  his  last  public  address  and  was  given 
in  the  hall  of  the  Boston  Young  Men's  Christian 
Union. 

Another  outstanding  memory  I  have  of  Phillips 
is  the  loving  partnership  that  existed  between  him 
and  his  invalid  wife.  She  cheered  and  encouraged 
him  in  his  darkest  hours  when  there  were  but  scant 
sources  of  comfort  to  be  found  anywhere  else. 

Wendell  Phillips  had  the  heart  and  the  vision  and 
the  courage  to  step  outside  the  limitations  of  his 
own  aristocratic,  cultured,  privileged  class  and  give 
himself,  all  that  he  had  and  was  and  all  that  he 
hoped  to  be,  to  the  men  and  women  of  another  class, 
unfavored,  unprivileged  and  unchampioned,  in 
order  that  he  might  improve  their  station  in  life. 
What  we  need  to-day  more  than  anything  else  in 
this  great  city,  in  the  old  Bay  State,  throughout 
our  country  and  the  world  around,  is  men  like  Phillips 
who  are  sufficiently  big-hearted,  broad-minded  and 
courageous  to  sense  the  difficulties  and  sufferings  of 
some  class  or  race  not  their  own  and  devote  them- 
selves to  an  improvement  of  their  condition. 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  15 


ADDRESS 

BY  MR.  WILLIAM  D.  BRIGHAM 


Fellow  Citizens,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

The  highest  peaks  of  the  Alps  catch  the  first 
rays  of  the  morning  light,  while  the  valleys  below 
are  still  submerged  in  darkness.  So  it  seems  to 
me  a  few  persons  in  each  century  seem  to  catch 
the  morning  light  of  God's  plans  and  to  have  what 
we  call  vision.  Everyone  has  some  ideal  to  which 
he  tries  to  measure  up.  Wendell  Phillips  was 
what  we  might  call  a  practical  idealist. 

We  are  all  interested  in  the  stories  of  Greek 
and  Roman  mythology,  for  these  nations  personified 
everything, —  war,  peace,  with  their  heroes  and 
heroines,  the  winds,  the  sea,  the  skies,  the  stars, 
fruits  and  flowers, —  and  yet,  interesting  as  all 
these  stories  are,  we  always  have  the  feeling,  I 
think,  that  they  were  unreal. 

Wendell  Phillips  was  a  man  among  men,  a  man 
of  like  passions  with  ourselves,  who  attended  our 
schools,  went  to  our  colleges  and  walked  our  streets, 
and  many  of  us  still  living  remember  his  beautiful 
and  benignant  face  as  he  dwelt  among  us,  in  the 
peaceful  evening  of  life  after  the  storm  and  stress 
of  his  youth  and  earlier  years. 


16  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

I  think  that  sometimes  the  common  blessings 
of  life  —  air,  sunshine,  home,  friendship,  liberty  - 
are  enjoyed  by  us  with  almost  unthankful  hearts, 
and  I  am  sure  it  is  well  and  profitable  to-day  to 
pause  for  a  few  moments  to  express  our  gratitude 
to  one  who  more  than  anyone  else,  with  perhaps  a 
single  exception,  brought  about  the  abolition  of 
slavery  in  this  country.  We  do  well  to  honor  his 
memory  —  to  remember  that  when  friends  forsook 
him,  when  his  own  family  turned  from  him  and  when 
the  church  of  the  living  God,  which  should  have  led 
in  the  conflict,  was  either  indifferent  or  hostile, 
he  never  wavered  in  his  purpose  that  slavery 
should  be  abolished. 

I  think  it  is  impressive  to  remember  how  few 
persons  there  really  were  who  furnished  the  inspira- 
tion, did  the  work,  risked  their  lives,  to  free  the 
slaves — Phillips,  Garrison,  Sumner,  Andrew,  Beecher, 
Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  Whittier,  Theodore  Parker 
and  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Julia  Ward  Howe. 

Some  of  our  greatest  men  were  born  in  lowly 
circumstances  and  in  extreme  poverty.  President 
McKinley  used  to  relate  how,  when  he  was  a  boy, 
on  a  winter  morning  he  would  go  out  into  the  pasture 
with  his  mother  and  stand  on  the  place  where  the 
cow  had  been  lying  all  night,  to  warm  his  bare  feet, 
while  his  mother  milked  the  cow. 

But  Wendell  Phillips  was  born  of  an  historic  family, 
in  affluence.  He  had  the  charm  of  great  personal 
beauty,  an  education  at  the  Boston  Latin  School 
and  at  Harvard  University  and  the  Harvard  Law 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  17 

School,  a  voice  so  wonderful  that  people  called  him 
"the  silver-tongued  orator,"  and,  above  all,  a  heart 
that  went  out  to  every  lowly  human  being. 

On  the  12th  of  April,  1630,  the  progenitor  of  the 
Phillips  family  in  America,  Rev.  George  Phillips, 
set  sail  as  fellow  passenger  with  Governor  Winthrop, 
Sir  Richard  Saltonstall  and  others  equally  well 
known.  John  Phillips,  the  father  of  Wendell,  is 
described  as  being  a  good  man,  true  as  steel,  and 
always  trustworthy  in  the  various  relations  of  life. 
He  lived  in  the  fear  of  God  and  from  his  word 
received  instruction  for  the  guidance  of  his  conduct. 
In  a  large  mansion  house  which  still  stands  on  the 
lower  corner  of  Beacon  and  Walnut  streets  in  this 
city,  Wendell  Phillips,  the  eighth  child  in  a  family 
of  nine  children,  was  born  on  the  29th  of  November, 
1811.  His  father,  John  Phillips,  was  the  first  mayor 
of  Boston;  his  mother,  who  was  a  diligent  student 
of  the  scriptures,  brought  up  Wendell  carefully  in 
its  truths.  In  August,  1822,  in  his  eleventh  year, 
he  entered  the  Boston  Latin  School,  which  was  then 
at  the  corner  of  Chapman  place  and  School  street, 
on  the  site  of  the  present  Parker  House.  He 
finished  at  the  Latin  School  when  he  was  sixteen 
and  entered  Harvard  College.  One  of  his  class- 
mates says  of  him:  "We  were  in  the  same  class 
at  school  and  college  for  five  years.  To  my  mind 
then,  he  was  the  most  beautiful  person  I  had  ever 
seen, —  handsome  indeed  in  form  and  feature,— 
but  what  I  mean  by  his  beauty  was  his  grace  of 
character,  his  kindly,  generous  manners,  his  bright- 


18  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

ness  of  mind  and  his  perfect  purity  and  whiteness 
of  soul  —  his  face  had  a  radiance  from  which  shone 
forth  the  soul  that  dwelt  within." 

At  the  age  of  fourteen  he  joined  Lyman  Beecher's 
Congregational  Church  on  Hanover  street. 

A  personal  friend  asked  Mr.  Phillips  not  long 
before  his  death,  "Mr.  Phillips,  did  you  ever  con- 
secrate yourself  to  God?"  "Yes,"  he  answered, 
"when  I  was  a  boy  of  fourteen  years  of  age,  in  the 
old  church  at  the  North  End,  I  heard  Lyman  Beecher 
preach  on  the  theme,  'You  belong  to  God/  and  I 
went  home  after  that  service,  threw  myself  on  the 
floor  in  my  room,  with  locked  doors,  and  prayed, 
'0  God,  I  belong  to  thee;  take  what  is  thine  own. 
I  ask  this,  that  whenever  a  thing  be  wrong,  it  may 
have  no  temptation  over  me;  whenever  a  thing  be 
right,  it  may  take  no  courage  to  do  it.'  From  that 
day  to  this  it  has  been  so." 

George  William  Curtis  says  of  Phillips'  first 
speech  in  Faneuil  Hall,  when  he  was  twenty-six 
years  old:  "In  the  annals  of  American  speech 
there  has  been  no  such  scene  since  Patrick  Henry's 
electrical  warning  to  George  the  Third.  It  was 
the  greatest  of  oratorical  triumphs,  when  a  supreme 
emotion,  a  sentiment  which  is  to  mold  a  people 
anew,  lifted  the  orator  to  adequate  expression; 
three  such  scenes  are  illustrations  in  our  history, — 
that  of  the  speech  of  Patrick  Henry  at  Williams- 
burg,  of  Wendell  Phillips  in  Faneuil  Hall,  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  at  Gettysburg, —  three,  and  there  is  no 
fourth." 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  19 

Among  his  classmates  were  Edmund  Quincy, 
George  Ticknor,  John  Lothrop  Motley,  Charles 
Sumner  and  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes. 

What  led  Phillips  to  espouse  the  anti-slavery 
cause?  He  practised  his  profession  for  a  while 
and  everything  pointed  to  a  great  success,  when  the 
event  came  which  turned  the  whole  current  of  his 
life,  leading  him  to  forsake  all  the  high  inducements 
which  the  law  held  out.  Some  say  it  was  the  sight 
of  Garrison  being  dragged  by  a  mob  through  the 
streets  of  Boston,  October  21,  1835,  after  the 
destruction  of  the  office  of  The  Liberator,  which 
inclined  Phillips  definitely  to  align  himself  with  the 
cause  of  anti-slavery,  but  he  always  claimed  it  was 
his  wife  who  brought  this  about  —  the  wife  of 
whom  he  wrote:  "She  is  my  counsel,  my  guide, 
my  inspiration."  He  had  married  Miss  Ann  Terry 
Greene,  whose  uncle  and  aunt,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Henry 
G.  Chapman,  were  close  friends  of  Garrison,  while 
the  niece  herself  was  ardently  devoted  to  all  that 
might  better  the  condition  of  the  slave. 

Be  the  cause  what  it  may,  Phillips,  with  his  friend 
Edmund  Quincy,  joined  the  New  England  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  an  association  founded  about  this 
time,  and  in  March  of  1836  the  former  made  his 
maiden  speech  against  slavery  at  Lynn,  encour- 
aged, among  others,  by  John  G.  Whittier,  himself  so 
whole-souled  an  agitator  in  the  conflict.  Follow- 
ing this  came  the  speech  at  Faneuil  Hall,  occasioned 
by  the  horror  with  which  was  viewed  the  assassina- 
tion of  Lovejoy  at  Alton,  HI.,  for  criticising  in  his 


20  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

journal  the  lynching  of  a  negro;  a  speech  which 
certainly  struck  beyond  all  evading  the  keynote  of 
the  anti-slavery  movement  from  first  to  last.  On 
October  30,  1842,  he  made  his  great  speech  in 
Faneuil  Hall,  in  the  case  of  George  Latimer,  a 
fugitive  slave  arrested  in  Boston,  and  in  March, 
1855,  gave  special  evidence  of  his  wonderful  legal 
gifts,  causing  many  to  regret  his  apparently  narrow 
consecration  of  them,  when  he  argued  before  the 
Committee  on  Federal  Relations  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Legislature  in  support  of  petitions  for  the 
removal  of  Judge  Loring,  who  had  issued  the  war- 
rant to  arrest  a  slave  named  Anthony  Burns. 

The  New  England  Anti-Slavery  Society  was 
founded  January  6,  1832,  when  Wendell  Phillips 
was  twenty-one,  in  the  schoolroom  of  the  African 
Baptist  Church  on  Smith  court,  off  Joy  street. 
Said  William  Lloyd  Garrison:  "We  have  met  here 
to-night  in  this  obscure  schoolhouse  —  our  members 
are  few  and  our  influence  limited;  but,  mark  my 
prediction,  Faneuil  Hall  shall  ere  long  echo  with  the 
principles  we  have  set  forth.  We  shall  shake  the 
nation  with  their  mighty  power." 

Then  began  an  agitation,  says  one  writer,  which 
for  the  marvel  of  its  origin,  the  majesty  of  its  pur- 
pose, the  earnestness,  unselfishness  and  ability  of 
its  appeals,  the  vigor  of  its  assault,  the  deep,  national 
convulsion  it  caused,  the  vast  and  beneficent  changes 
it  wrought  and  its  widespread,  indirect  influence  on 
all  kindred  moral  questions,  is  without  a  parallel 
in  history  since  Luther. 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  21 

Wendell  Phillips  was  a  prophet,  for  he  said:  "I 
love  inexpressibly  these  streets  of  Boston,  over 
whose  pavements  my  mother  held  up  tenderly  my 
baby  feet;  and  if  God  grants  me  time  enough,  I  will 
make  them  too  pure  to  bear  the  footsteps  of  a  slave." 

I  saw  not  long  ago,  in  a  newspaper  published  in 
Boston  about  100  years  ago,  an  advertisement  of  a 
cow  for  sale,  giving  so  many  quarts  of  milk  per 
day,  and  directly  under  it  another  advertisement  of 
"A  young,  strong,  healthy  colored  boy  for  sale, — 
will  be  sold  low,  to  settle  an  estate."  I  blush  for 
my  native  city  that  ever  a  man,  made  in  the  image 
of  God  and  with  an  immortal  soul,  was  publicly 
offered  for  sale  and  that  a  fugitive  slave,  Anthony 
Burns,  was  dragged  through  our  streets  as  he  was 
being  returned  to  his  master. 

Wendell  Phillips  said:  "The  Whigs  one  day 
invited  Daniel  Webster  to  address  them  in  Faneuil 
Hall,  but  the  great  Daniel  was  pettish  that  day 
and  declined.  It  was  well,"  said  Mr.  Phillips, 
"for  Faneuil  Hall  is  a  good  refuge  for  a  fugitive 
slave  to  flee  to,  but  a  poor  place  of  refuge  for 
recreant  statesmen." 

It  is  interesting  to  recall  that  Abraham  Lincoln, 
when  a  young  man,  walking  with  a  friend,  came  to 
a  slave  mart  at  the  South  where  slaves  were  being 
sold  at  auction.  He  turned  to  his  friend  and  said: 
"Some  day  I  will  hit  that  institution  and  I  will 
hit  it  hard."  Years  afterwards  he  closed  the 
"Emancipation  Proclamation"  with  these  words: 
"Upon  this  act,  taken  after  great  deliberation,  I 


22  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

invoke  the  blessing  of  Almighty  God  and  the 
considerate  judgment  of  mankind." 

Wendell  Phillips  said  he  once  heard  Daniel 
Webster  make  a  three-hour  speech  and  at  its  close 
one  could  not  tell  whether  Webster  loved  slavery  or 
hated  it.  He  opposed  Webster  bitterly  in  the 
latter's  advocacy  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  Not 
to  quote  his  exact  words,  Webster  said  that  the 
purpose  of  abolitionists  "was  distinctly  treasonable/' 
that  the  law  would  be  executed  in  all  the  great 
cities.  He  called  upon  Massachusetts  to  discharge 
her  duty  of  catching  fugitive  slaves.  He  said: 
"You  of  the  South  have  as  much  right  to  recover 
your  fugitive  slaves  as  the  North  has  to  any  of 
its  rights,  privileges  of  navigation  and  commerce. 
The  excitement  in  Boston  caused  by  the  Fugi- 
tive Slave  Law  is  fast  subsiding  and  it  is  thought 
there  is  now  no  probability  of  any  resistance  if  a 
fugitive  should  be  arrested." 

When  Commissioner  Loring  had  given  his  decision 
that  Anthony  Burns  should  be  returned  to  slavery, 
Wendell  Phillips  visited  him  in  his  cell.  Burns 
looked  up  into  his  face  with  a  pathetic  appeal:  "Mr. 
Phillips,  has  everything  been  done  for  me  that  can  be 
done?  Must  I  go  back?" 

Mr.  Phillips  said:  "I  went  over  in  my  mind  the 
history  of  Massachusetts.  I  thought  of  her  schools, 
her  colleges  of  learning,  her  churches,  her  courts, 
her  benevolent  and  philanthropic  institutions,  her 
great  names,  her  Puritans,  her  Pilgrims,  and  I  was 
obliged  to  say,  'Burns,  there  isn't  humanity,  there 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  23 

isn't  justice  enough  here  to  save  you;  you  must 
go  back.'  Then  I  vowed  anew/'  Mr.  Phillips 
said,  "before  the  everlasting  God,  that  I  would 
consecrate  all  the  power  he  had  given  me  to  hasten 
the  time  when  an  innocent  man  should  be  safe  on 
the  sacred  soil  of  the  Puritans."  Those  are  the 
words  of  the  man  in  whose  honor  we  are  dedicating 
this  statue  to-day. 

The  worldly  side  of  Phillips'  life  may  be  summed 
up  in  the  words:  "He  was  born  on  Beacon  street 
and  he  died  on  Common  street." 

Wendell  Phillips  had  an  exceedingly  tender  con- 
science. At  the  funeral  of  Theodore  Parker,  who 
died  in  Italy  and  who  was  one  year  older  than 
Mr.  Phillips,  and  his  neighbor  and  intimate  friend 
and  one  of  the  early  abolitionists,  he  related  this 
incident  of  Theodore  Parker:  "A  little  boy  in 
petticoats,  in  my  fifth  year,"  said  Mr.  Parker,  "my 
father  sent  me  from  the  field  home.  A  spotted 
tortoise,  in  shallow  water  at  the  foot  of  a  rhodora, 
caught  my  sight  and  I  lifted  my  stick  to  strike  it, 
when  a  voice  within  said:  'It  is  wrong.'  I  stood 
with  lifted  stick,  in  wonder  at  the  new  emotion, 
till  rhodora  and  tortoise  vanished  from  my  sight. 
I  hastened  home  and  asked  my  mother  what  it  was 
that  told  me  it  was  wrong.  Wiping  a  tear  with 
her  apron  and  taking  me  in  her  arms  she  said :  '  Some 
men  call  it  conscience  but  I  prefer  to  call  it  the  voice 
of  God  in  the  soul  of  man.  If  you  listen  to  it  and 
obey  it,  then  it  will  speak  clearer  and  clearer  and 
always  guide  you  right.  But  if  you  turn  a  deaf 


24  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

ear  or  disobey,  then  it  will  fade  out,  little  by  little, 
and  leave  you  in  the  dark  and  without  a  guide. " 
Wendell  Phillips  also  heard  the  voice  of  God  in  his 
soul  through  all  his  life. 

Wendell  Phillips  died  thirty  years  ago  and  I 
count  it  a  great  joy  that  I  often  met  him  and  that 
through  one  of  his  family  whom  I  knew  he  gave 
me  his  photograph  with  his  own  signature  upon  it. 

One  day  when  I  was  quite  a  young  boy  he  came 
into  our  store  and  I  said:  "Mr.  Phillips,  would 
you  give  me  your  autograph?"  and  he  said:  "With 
pleasure,  young  man,"  and  he  wrote:  "Peace,  if 
possible,  justice  at  any  rate."  And  then  he  said: 
"Let  me  add  a  sentiment  which  De  Tocqueville 
wrote  to  my  friend  Charles  Sumner:  'Life  is  neither 
pain  nor  pleasure,  but  serious  business  to  be  entered 
upon  with  courage  in  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice.'3 

On  the  21st  of  October,  1835,  an  anti-slavery 
meeting  held  at  46  Washington  street  was  broken 
up  and  William  Lloyd  Garrison  attacked  by  what 
has  been  called  the  "Garrison  Mob."  He  was 
hustled  off  to  the  jail  in  a  carriage  and  the  next  day 
was  dragged  through  Court  street,  with  a  rope 
around  his  waist.  Sitting  at  his  window  in  his  law 
office  was  Wendell  Phillips,  and  this  scene  stirred 
his  Puritan  blood  to  the  very  finger  tips. 

On  the  7th  of  November,  1837,  Rev.  Elijah  Love- 
joy  was  murdered  by  a  mob  in  Alton,  111.,  and  his 
press  destroyed  and  printing  office  burned.  He  had 
said  in  his  paper:  "I  have  sworn  eternal  hostility 
to  slavery,  and  by  the  blessing  of  God  I  will  never 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  25 

go  back."  When  news  of  Love  joy's  death  reached 
Boston,  Rev.  William  Ellery  Channing  and  one 
hundred  of  his  fellow  citizens  applied  for  permission 
to  hold  a  meeting  of  protest  in  Faneuil  Hall.  Elo- 
quent addresses  were  made  by  Doctor  Channing 
and  others.  Suddenly  there  arose  in  the  gallery 
James  T.  Austin,  the  Attorney-General  of  the 
Commonwealth,  and  with  a  loud  and  angry  voice 
declared  that  Lovejoy  had  "died  as  the  fool  dieth," 
and  compared  his  murderers  with  the  men  who 
destroyed  the  tea  in  Boston  Harbor. 

Probably  not  more  than  a  dozen  persons  present 
knew  the  young  man  who  stepped  upon  the  stage 
to  reply,  as  he  said:  "Sir,  when  I  heard  the  gentle- 
man lay  down  principles  which  place  the  mur- 
derers of  Alton  side  by  side  with  Otis  and  Hancock, 
with  Quincy  and  Adams,  I  thought  those  pictured 
lips"  (pointing  to  the  portraits  in  the  hall)  "would 
have  broken  into  voice  to  rebuke  the  recreant  Ameri- 
can, the  slanderer  of  the  dead."  Here  he  was 
interrupted  by  hisses  and  uproar.  At  length  he 
said:  "Sir,  for  the  sentiments  he  has  uttered,  on 
soil  consecrated  by  the  prayers  of  Puritans  and  the 
blood  of  patriots,  the  earth  should  have  yawned 
and  swallowed  him  up."  Here  the  uproar  became 
furious,  and  the  chairman,  Hon.  William  Sturgis, 
and  George  Bond,  Esq.,  came  to  his  side  and 
besought  the  audience  to  allow  Mr.  Phillips  to 
proceed,  which  after  a  while  he  did,  saying: 

"Fellow  citizens,  I  cannot  take  back  my  words. 
Surely  the  Attorney-General,  so  long  and  well 


26  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

known  here,  needs  not  the  aid  of  your  hisses  against 
one  so  young  as  I  am  —  my  voice  never  before 
heard  within  these  walls." 

In  sharp  contrast  to  this  scene  I  have  just 
described,  and  fifty  years  after  its  occurrence,  I 
was  one  of  that  great  company  who  waited  in  long 
procession  in  Faneuil  Hall  to  pass  around  the  casket 
of  Wendell  Phillips,  which  stood  in  almost  the  iden- 
tical spot  where  he  first  publicly  put  himself  on  the 
side  of  the  slave  and  the  oppressed. 

William  Lloyd  Garrison  when  twenty-five  years 
old  started  the  publication  of  his  paper  called  The 
Liberator,  advocating  the  immediate  abolition  of 
slavery,  and  with  the  sublime  pledge:  "I  will  be  as 
harsh  as  truth  and  as  uncompromising  as  justice. 
On  this  subject  I  do  not  wish  to  speak  or  write 
with  moderation.  I  am  in  earnest.  I  will  not 
equivocate;  I  will  not  excuse;  I  will  not  retreat  a 
single  inch;  and  I  will  be  heard." 

On  a  building  at  the  corner  of  Devonshire  and 
Water  streets  in  Boston  is  a  bronze  tablet  with  these 

words: 

On  this  spot 

William  Lloyd  Garrison 

Began  the  publishing  of 

"The  Liberator" 

Jan.  1,  1831. 

In  a  small  chamber, 

Friendless  and  unseen, 

Toiled  o'er  his  types 

One  poor,  unlearned  young  man; 

The  place  was  dark, 

unfurnished  and  mean, 

Yet  there  the  freedom  of 

a  race  began. 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  27 

I  suppose  we  can  hardly  imagine  the  horrors  of 
slavery  in  our  country  for  the  fifty  years  preceding 
the  war.  Let  me  read  you  a  few  lines  from  "  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin"  about  "The  Slave  Warehouse," 
where  slaves  were  sold  at  auction: 

THE  SLAVE  WAREHOUSE. 

"Then  you  shall  be  courteously  entreated  to  call 
and  examine,  and  shall  find  an  abundance  of  hus- 
bands, wives,  brothers,  sisters,  fathers,  mothers, 
and  young  children,  to  be  'sold  separately,  or  in 
lots  to  suit  the  convenience  of  the  purchaser';  and 
that  soul  immortal,  once  bought  with  blood  and 
anguish  by  the  Son  of  God,  when  the  earth  shook 
and  the  rocks  rent,  and  the  graves  were  opened, 
can  be  sold,  leased,  mortgaged,  exchanged  for 
groceries  or  dry  goods,  to  suit  the  phases  of  trade, 
or  the  fancy  of  the  purchaser." 

There  is  a  tablet  placed  by  the  city  on  the  site 
of  the  Phillips  homestead  on  Essex  street: 

Here 

Wendell  Phillips 

resided  during  forty 

years,  devoted  by  him 

to  efforts  to  secure  the 

abolition  of  African 
slavery  in  this  Country. 


The  charms  of  home, 
the  enjoyment  of  wealth 

and  learning,  even 

the  kindly  recognition 

of  his  fellow  citizens, 

were  by  him  accounted  as 

naught  compared  with  duty. 


28  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

He  lived  to  see  justice 

triumphant,  freedom 

universal,  and  to 

receive  the 

tardy  praises  of  his  opponents. 
The  blessings  of  the  poor, 

the  friendless,  and  the 
oppressed,  enriched  him. 


In  Boston 

he  was  born  29th  November,  1811, 
and  died  2nd  February,  1884. 

This  tablet  was  erected  in  1894 

by  order  of  the 
City  Council  of  Boston. 

Let  me  quote  a  few  words  from  Joseph  Cook's 
estimate  of  Wendell  Phillips,  given  in  Tremont 
Temple  on  the  Monday  after  Phillips  died:  "Whom 
God  crowns,  let  no  man  try  to  discrown.  There 
lies  dead  on  his  shield  in  yonder  street  an  unsullied 
soldier  of  unpopular  reform,  a  spotlessly  disinter- 
ested champion  of  the  oppressed,  the  foremost 
orator  of  the  English-speaking  world  in  recent  years, 
the  largest  and  latest,  let  us  hope  not  the  last,  of 
the  Puritans,  a  servant  of  the  most  high  God,  a 
man  on  the  altar  of  whose  heart  the  coals  of  fire 
were  kindled  by  a  breath  from  the  divine  justice 
and  tenderness." 

"He  joined  the  Anti-Slavery  Society  in  1836; 
but  his  real  membership  in  the  anti-slavery  ranks 
began  from  a  time  in  which  he  saw  Garrison  mobbed 
in  1835.  He  became  a  supporter  of  the  Union  in 
his  fiftieth  year,  1861,  and  in  that  very  year  was 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  29 

himself  mobbed  in  this  city.  He  was  twenty-six 
years  old  when  he  delivered  his  famous  address  at 
Faneuil  Hall  on  the  murder  of  Love  joy.  He  was 
seventy-three  years  old  at  his  death.  It  may  be 
said  that  from  1837  to  his  last  hour  he  was  a  pillar 
of  fire,  through  which  God  looked  in  the  morning 
watch  of  better  ages  to  come,  and  troubled  the  host 
of  his  enemies,  and  took  off  their  chariot  wheels. 

"This  man  almost  never  unveiled  to  mortal  gaze 
the  holy  of  holies  of  his  spirit  in  which  he  dwelt 
alone  with  God.  Through  all  his  life  he  was  a 
Calvinist.  He  said  at  Theodore  Parker's  funeral: 
'Mine  is  not  Parker's  faith.  Mine  is  the  old 
faith  of  New  England.  On  these  subjects  he  and 
I  rarely  speak.7 

"I  heard  the  authoress  of  the  ' Battle  Hymn  of 
the  Republic'  say  to  a  hushed  assembly:  'Wendell 
Phillips  was  orthodox  of  the  orthodox.  He  would 
not  worship  with  the  churches  of  Boston;  but  in 
the  darkest  days  of  the  struggle  with  slavery  he 
and  some  of  those  who  were  most  nearly  of  his  own 
heart  were  accustomed  to  meet  on  the  Sabbath  in 
private  homes  to  observe  the  holy  service  of  the 
Lord's  supper.  The  faith  of  this  servant  of  human- 
ity was  not  a  creed  merely,  but  a  life." 

I  quote  from  one  of  Phillips'  speeches:  "When 
I  stood  upon  the  pearly  shores  of  Genoa  and  gazed 
upon  that  magnificent  ship  of  the  line,  'The  Ohio,' 
her  graceful  masts  tapering  towards  the  sky,  the 
translucent  waters  reflecting  her  majestic  form, 
I  thanked  God  I  was  an  American  citizen,  but  when 


30  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

I  thought  that  from  underneath  those  decks  there 
should  boom  forth  a  salute  to  uphold  American 
slavery,  I  hung  my  head  in  shame  for  my  country. " 

Let  me  entreat  the  young  people  here  to-day,  by 
the  memory  of  all  Phillips  and  Garrison  and  all  who 
were  with  them  suffered,  by  the  sight  of  the  flags  in 
Doric  Hall  of  our  State  House  stained  with  the  life- 
blood  of  those  who  carried  them,  both  white  and 
black,  by  the  beautiful  bronze  "Shaw  Memorial" 
with  its  inspiring  words,  to  appreciate  this  land  of 
ours  and  to  love  their  country  next  to  their  God. 

No  doubt  Wendell  Phillips,  in  his  hours  of  strife, 
when  his  early  friends  seemed  to  have  forsaken  him 
and  when  the  battle  raged  the  fiercest,  had  an  abid- 
ing faith  that  God  would  eventually  wipe  out  from 
this  country  the  curse  of  slavery  and  that  right 
should  prevail.  Faber's  words  apply  to  him: 

"Oh,  it  is  hard  to  work  for  God, 

To  rise  and  take  his  part 
Upon  this  battlefield  of  earth, 
And  not  sometimes  lose  heart! 


f  Thrice  blest  is  he  to  whom  is  given 
The  instinct  that  can  tell 

That  God  is  on  the  field  when  he 
Is  most  invisible." 


Acting  Mayor  Coleman  said  the  program  read 
" Franklin  Benjamin  Sanborn,"  but  the  state  knows 
the  next  speaker  as  plain  Frank  Sanborn,  the  sage 
of  Concord. 

When  he  was  introduced  he  received  an  ovation 
and  was  given  three  rousing  cheers. 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  31 


REMARKS 

BY  FRANK  B.  SANBORN 


Mr.  Mayor,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

In  addressing  this  vast  assembly  one  would  need 
the  far-reaching  voice  of  Phillips,  or  that  more 
wonderful  utterance  of  his  hero,  Daniel  O'Connell, 
in  whose  praise  I  heard  him  recite  those  lines  of  an 
unfriendly  English  poet,  Bulwer,  in  his  "New 
Timon,"  commencing: 

"Once  to  my  sight  that  giant  form  was  given, 
Walled  with  wide  air,  roofed  by  the  boundless  heaven"; 

and  to  those  thousands  on  thousands,  a  countless 
multitude,  O'ConnelPs  voice  glided,  easy  as  a  bird 
might  glide.  To  me  that  effort  would  be  hopeless; 
I  must  address  the  half  that  may  hear  me. 

Addressing  in  Faneuil  Hall,  where  in  1834  Phillips' 
magic  voice  had  not  yet  been  heard,  John  Quincy 
Adams,  that  "old  man  eloquent,"  eulogizing  Lafa- 
yette, recently  dead  in  France,  said:  "We  were  not 
needful  to  his  glory;  he  was  needful  to  ours." 
So  Boston  may  say  to-day  of  Wendell  Phillips. 
She  had  many  eloquent  sons,  but  he  was  needed  to 
give  Boston  the  glory  of  eloquence  above  all  the 
Americans  of  his  time.  But  that  was  not  our  chief 
reason  for  unveiling  his  statue  to-day.  Years 
before,  and  while  Phillips  was  a  Boston  schoolboy, 


32  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

Mr.  Adams,  then  in  Monroe's  cabinet  along  with 
Calhoun,  and  fresh  from  a  cheerless  conversation 
with  that  champion  of  negro  slavery,  wrote  in  his 
secret  diary:  " Slavery  is  the  great  and  foul  stain 
upon  our  Union;  and  it  is  a  contemplation  worthy 
of  the  most  exalted  soul,  whether  its  total  abolition 
is  practicable,  and  what  means  would  accomplish 
it  at  the  smallest  cost  of  human  suffering.  This 
object  is  vast  in  its  compass,  awful  in  its  prospects, 
sublime  and  beautiful  in  its  issue.  A  life  devoted 
to  it  would  be  nobly  spent  or  sacrificed." 

Such  was  the  life  we  honor  to-day,  and  we  rejoice 
that  it  was  not  sacrificed,  as  so  many  others  were, 
before  the  great  purpose  was  achieved. 

For  the  career  that  he  deliberately  chose,  putting 
aside  all  thought  of  wealth  or  fame,  Phillips  had 
many  qualifications.  First  of  all,  intrepid  courage; 
not  merely  the  moral  courage  which  every  reformer 
needs,  but  that  invincible  physical  courage  which 
distinguishes  heroes.  It  was  said  of  General  Wash- 
ington by  Jefferson  that  he  "met  personal  danger 
with  the  calmest  unconcern."  So  did  Phillips.  I 
knew  him  intimately  in  the  period  of  mobs  in  Bos- 
ton, and  I  was  once  or  twice  mobbed  with  him, 
He  never  quailed  or  was  discomposed  by  the  loudest 
mob.  He  did  not  think  them  dangerous,  but  had 
they  been  so  he  would  not  have  feared  them;  he  was 
insensible  to  fear  —  literally  so.  Fear  is  a  common 
and  often  a  useful  human  quality,  but  it  was  lacking 
in  Phillips.  The  other  needful  qualities,  intellectual 
and  moral,  he  had  —  tact  in  dealing  with  men, 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  33 

courtesy  to  all,  a  clear  head,  a  good  memory,  fidelity 
in  friendship,  composure  of  mind  and  boundless  good 
nature.  He  could  perform  that  very  difficult  feat 
for  a  Boston  patrician  —  he  could  change  his  mind. 
He  disliked  to  do  it,  but  he  did  it  on  more  than  one 
occasion;  most  notably  when,  in  the  spring  of  1861, 
he  passed  from  the  disunion  side  to  the  endangered 
but  finally  triumphant  side  of  the  Union,  and  gave 
his  great  speech  in  the  Music  Hall  under  the  Stars 
and  Stripes. 

My  time  is  brief,  and  I  shall  call  to  my  aid,  in 
portraying  concisely  the  period  of  his  life  assigned  to 
me,  the  testimony  of  an  older  friend,  who  had  wit- 
nessed his  whole  public  mission,  and  who  outlived 
him. 

A  few  years  before  the  death  of  Wendell  Phillips, 
by  a  painful  disease,  his  elder  associate  in  the  anti- 
slavery  cause,  Bronson  Alcott,  who  had  in  1829 
come  up  from  Connecticut  to  Boston  to  teach  that 
confident  city  the  best  way  to  educate  children, 
and  had  given  her  grown-up  population  serious  and 
sincere  lessons  in  liberty  and  toleration, —  Bronson 
Alcott,  in  the  vale  of  years  (it  was  his  eighty-third 
year),  surveying  the  whole  career  of  Phillips,  gave 
this  outline  of  it  in  a  comprehensive  short  poem: 

WENDELL  PHILLIPS  AT  THREE-SCORE  AND  TEN. 
People's  Attorney,  servant  of  the  Right, 
Pleader  for  all  shades  of  the  solar  ray, — 
Complexions  dusky,  yellow,  red  or  white, — 
Who,  in  thy  country's  and  thy  time's  despite, 
Hast  only  questioned,  "What  will  Duty  say?" 
And  followed  swiftly  in  her  narrow  way! 


34  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

Tipped  is  thy  tongue  with  golden  eloquence; 
All-honeyed  accents  fall  from  off  thy  lips, — 
Each  eager  listener  his  full  measure  sips, 
Yet  runs  to  waste  the  sparkling  opulence. 

The  scorn  of  bigots  and  the  worldling's  flout, 
If  Time  long  held  thy  merit  in  suspense, 
Hastening  repentant  now,  with  pen  devout, 
Impartial  History  dare  not  leave  thee  out. 

We  are  assembled  here  to-day  to  bear  testimony 
that  history  has  found,  and  has  summoned  sculpture 
to  record,  in  noble  lineaments,  what  this  Attorney 
of  the  Right  was  in  his  outward  aspect,  as  he  trod 
these  his  native  streets,  and  did  much  to  make 
them  "too  free  to  endure  the  footsteps  of  a  slave " 
or  a  slave  trader. 

He  did  not  live  to  see  the  full  restoration  of  the 
freedman  to  those  rights  of  education  and  of  suffrage 
that  he  should  have  had;  but  within  the  past  few 
weeks,  while  this  monument  stood  here  veiled, 
awaiting  its  dedication,  that  Supreme  Court  which 
in  our  early  time  was  the  frowning  bastion  of  oppres- 
sion, fortified  with  all  the  technicalities  and  the 
rigmarole  of  musty  law,  to  protect  the  chain  and  the 
whip  of  the  slave  driver,  has  at  last  uttered  the  words 
of  truth  and  soberness  which  secure  to  the  negro 
all  the  voting  rights  of  the  white  man  and  the 
red  man  in  this  Republic,  the  peacemaker  of  the 
world. 

Phillips  would  have  rejoiced  in  this  slow  and 
grudging  decree,  rendered  unanimously  from  the  high 
seat  of  justice,  and  by  those  well-gowned  men  who, 
some  of  them,  in  the  follies  of  their  youth,  defended 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  35 

negro  slavery,  some  by  arms,  others  by  the  sophistries 
of  legal  interpretation.  As  Phillips  himself  used  to 
say,  the  hour  has  come 

"When  nations  slowly  wise  and  meanly  just 
To  buried  merit  raise  the  tardy  bust"; 

and  when  Justice,  long  held  back  by  selfishness  and 
arrogance,  at  last  holds  out  her  impartial  shield  over 
that  race,  at  once  the  most  loyal  and  forgiving  and 
the  most  injured  of  mankind. 


Acting  Mayor  Coleman,  in  introducing  William 
Monroe  Trotter,  said  that  nothing  was  so  appro- 
priate as  for  the  colored  race  to  have  a  spokesman 
in  dedicating  a  monument  to  Wendell  Phillips,  and 
that  there  could  be  no  more  fit  representative  than 
William  Monroe  Trotter,  whom  every  Bostonian 
who  is  half  alive  knows. 


36  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 


ADDRESS 

BY  WILLIAM  MONROE  TROTTER 


Wendell  Phillips  was  the  originator  of  the  policy 
of  reconstruction  of  the  United  States  of  America 
adopted,  after  the  war  of  the  Slave-holders'  Rebel- 
lion, on  the  basis  of  freedom.  He  was  the  pioneer 
advocate  of  the  ballot  for  the  Afro-American.  No 
son  rendered  this  Republic  greater  service  or  thereby 
did  more  for  its  permanence.  No  human  being 
ever  did  more  for  the  colored  Americans.  Of  the 
great  abolition  movement  Lundy  was  the  pioneer, 
Garrison  the  editor  and  organizer,  Phillips  the 
orator,  Mrs.  Stowe  the  author,  Whittier  the  poet, 
Sumner  the  political  statesman,  and  John  Brown 
the  captain  and  martyr.  Of  these  none  made 
as  great  personal  sacrifice  as  Phillips,  save  John 
Brown;  none  had  such  prophetic  statesmanship, 
save  Sumner. 

Declaring  human  slavery  to  be  the  sum  of  all 
villainies,  hating  it  with  a  holy  wrath,  the  worst 
feature  of  it  in  his  eyes  being  the  return  of  the  freed- 
man  to  bondage,  possessing  unequaled  ability  to 
voice  his  wrath,  Phillips  was  a  most  powerful  force 
in  creating  by  organized  agitation  public  sentiment 
for  the  abolition  of  slavery.  When,  at  very  thought 
of  the  election  of  the  non-abolitionist,  Abraham 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  37 

Lincoln,  the  slave-holding  states  rushed  into  seces- 
sion and  made  war  upon  the  Union  and  Massa- 
chusetts rose  in  patriotic  eagerness  to  enlist, 
Wendell  Phillips  was  the  first  of  the  moral  abolition- 
ists to  welcome  war  for  the  eradication  of  slavery. 
Early  in  1861  he  declared  that  the  only  mistake  the 
abolitionists  had  made  was  in  thinking  that  the 
nation  was  enough  civilized  for  slavery  to  be  abol- 
ished by  public  discussion  and  appeal  to  conscience. 
The  North,  he  said,  was  civilized,  but  the  South 
was  barbarous  and  therefore  slavery  must  be  abol- 
ished by  the  arbitrament  of  arms. 

From  the  first,  Phillips  announced  that  this  war 
of  the  Slave-holders'  Rebellion  would  result  in 
freedom.  He  was  the  first  to  publicly  demand  that 
emancipation  be  announced  as  the  object  of  the 
war.  This  he  said  would  arouse  holy  enthusiasm  in 
the  North.  Before  the  year  1861  had  ended  he 
called  for  the  enlistment  of  black  men  as  soldiers  of 
the  Union  and  for  congressional  action  abolishing 
slavery.  His  cry  was  "  Freedom  to  every  man 
beneath  the  stars  and  death  to  every  institution 
that  threatens  the  future  of  the  Republic." 

Wendell  Phillips  was  potent  in  creating  a  public 
sentiment  which  insisted  upon  Lincoln's  procla- 
mation of  emancipation.  Of  this  immortal  docu- 
ment he  said:  "To  three  millions  of  slaves  this 
proclamation  is  sunlight,  scattering  the  despair  of 
centuries,  and  the  blessings  of  the  poor  bear  it  up  to 
the  throne  of  God."  Then  at  once  he  set  in  to  make 
this  emancipation  secure.  He  feared  an  adverse 


38  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

decision  by  the  Supreme  Court,  that  bulwark  of 
slavery.  He  wanted  not  only  that  slaves  be 
declared  free,  but  that  slavery  as  an  institution 
be  abolished.  It  was  yet  1863  when  he  demanded 
of  Congress  a  constitutional  amendment  abolishing 
slavery,  providing  that  "no  state  shall  make  any 
DISTINCTION  among  its  citizens  on  account  of  race 
or  colour."  Thus  Wendell  Phillips  started  the  move- 
ment for  the  Thirteenth  Amendment,  which  was 
passed  by  Congress  and  ratified  by  states  in  1865. 

This  was  the  beginning  of  Phillips'  work  for  the 
reconstruction  into  the  United  States  of  those 
states  which  had  attempted  secession  in  order  to 
perpetuate  the  system  of  human  slavery.  For  this 
work  are  the  Afro-Americans  most  indebted  to 
Wendell  Phillips.  Of  the  work  for  the  abolition  of 
African  slavery  in  these  United  States  by  agitation 
and  organization,  William  Lloyd  Garrison  was  the 
pioneer  and  leader,  with  Phillips  as  his  lieutenant 
and  partner.  Of  the  work  of  securing  freedom  and 
gaining  citizenship  and  suffrage  for  the  colored 
American,  Wendell  Phillips  was  the  pioneer  and 
leader,  with  young  Frank  Sanborn  as  his  lieutenant 
and  Sumner  and  Thaddeus  Stevens  as  his  political 
partners. 

It  was  when  emancipation  had  come  that  Phillips 
showed  his  true  greatness,  for  at  the  time  when  it 
could  be  said  that  the  band  of  abolitionists  had 
triumphed  Phillips  refused  to  take  the  easy  and 
pleasurable  position  of  him  who  has  won  his  fight 
and  received^the  plaudits  of  the  people.  The  great 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  39 

Garrison  and  his  followers,  even  before  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment  was  enacted,  had  said  that  their  cause 
had  triumphed,  hence  the  anti-slavery  organizations 
should  be  disbanded  and  their  newspaper  organs 
discontinued.  Phillips  said  the  fight  was  not  over, 
freedom  had  yet  to  be  made  complete  and  secure; 
not  until  the  freed  slave  had  been  made  an  equal 
citizen  with  protection  was  the  triumph  of  the 
abolitionists  complete.  Phillips  prevailed,  Garrison 
resigned  and  wrote  The  Liberator's  valedictory. 
Phillips  was  elected  president  of  the  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society  and  manager  of  the  Anti-Slavery 
Standard. 

Quick  and  positive  was  the  vindication  of  Phillips' 
statesmanship.  From  1864  he  had  been  advocating 
the  simple  justice  of  education,  land  and  the  ballot 
for  the  freedmen.  Phillips'  reconstruction  policy 
held  that  human  freedom  was  above  all  else,  and 
only  by  entirely  uprooting  slavery  could  there  be 
any  permanence  for  the  reunited  Republic.  The 
only  other  reconstruction  was  that  adopted  by 
President  Andrew  Johnson,  restoring  the  government 
to  the  unchanged  whites,  the  former  masters,  who 
promptly  remanded  all  the  blacks  to  involuntary 
servitude  and  peonage  by  the  nefarious  "  black  laws," 
while  the  severed  ears,  hands  and  feet  of  ex-slaves 
strewed  the  highways  of  the  rural  South. 

Phillips  believed  with  us  that  there  can  be  no 
freedom  without  equality  and  no  equality  without 
the  ballot.  So  he  fought  on  with  organization  and 
agitation,  creating  a  public  sentiment  that  enabled 


40  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

the  noble,  far-sighted  Stevens  and  the  great  Sumner 
to  bring  about  the  enactment  of  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment,  establishing  full  citizenship  for  the 
colored  American  with  equality  before  the  law,  and 
then  the  Fifteenth  Amendment,  establishing  impar- 
tiality of  suffrage  for  black  and  white  alike. 

This  was  the  afternoon  of  the  career  of  Wendell 
Phillips.  He  redeemed  the  United  States  of  America 
from  its  great  sin  of  human  slavery.  He  was  first  to 
advocate  that  emancipation  be  the  declared  purpose 
of  the  war,  first  to  urge  that  Congress  emancipate, 
among  the  first  to  call  for  emancipation  as  a  war 
measure,  first  to  urge  the  enlistment  of  colored 
soldiers,  which  our  own  Governor  Andrew,  from 
yonder  State  House,  was  the  first  Governor  to  carry 
out.  Phillips  led  the  way  to  the  Thirteenth  Amend- 
ment. He  led  the  way  to  the  Fourteenth,  then  to  the 
Fifteenth  Amendment  as  the  greatest  private  citizen 
of  the  nation.  He  was  the  pioneer  in  advocacy  of 
suffrage  for  colored  Americans.  He  saw  to  it  that 
slavery  should  be  torn  up  by  the  roots  and  that  as 
far  as  concerns  federal  law  every  man,  white  and 
black,  should  have  citizenship  and  suffrage.  That  is 
why  we  Americans  of  color  to-day  do  honor  to 
Wendell  Phillips,  and  we  owe  our  ability  to  stand 
here  to-day,  in  possession  of  suffrage,  to  him. 

Long  has  Boston  deferred  this  honor  to  her  illus- 
trious son.  It  is  thirty-one  years  since  his  death, 
and  meantime  statues  have  arisen  to  others,  to  his 
companions,  Garrison  and  Sumner,  to  his  antago- 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  41 

nist,  Daniel  Webster,  yet  none  to  him.  Sad  the 
neglect,  yet  how  meet,  yes,  providential,  that  it  has 
ended  this  day  and  year.  For  this  is  the  semi- 
centennial anniversary  of  the  victory  of  the  army  of 
the  Union  over  the  armies  of  slavery;  it  is  the  fiftieth 
anniversary  year  of  the  enactment  and  ratification 
of  the  constitutional  amendment  which  destroyed 
the  system  of  slavery.  It  is  the  fiftieth  Independ- 
ence Day  since  emancipation,  celebrating  that 
immortal  document  which  declared  that  "all  men 
are  born  free  and  equal,"  that  they  are  "endowed 
with  certain  inalienable  rights  among  which  are 
life  and  liberty,"  that  "governments  derive  their 
just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed."  To 
this  Declaration  of  Independence  Phillips  was  loyal 
when  he  refused  loyalty  to  the  Constitution  which 
recognized  human  slavery. 

That  is  not  all.  His  statue  is  dedicated  almost  at 
the  very  time  when  the  Supreme  Court  which  Phil- 
lips doubted  has  affirmed  and  vindicated  that  Fif- 
teenth Amendment  which  was  the  crowning  work 
of  his  great  career,  thus  vindicating  Wendell 
Phillips. 

Thank  God  for  this  day,  Let  us  colored  Ameri- 
cans here  humbly  resolve,  standing  at  this  our  newest 
shrine,  that  so  far  as  in  us  lies,  using  his  methods  of 
agitation,  organization  and  courage,  with  the  utmost 
of  our  power,  we  shall  see  to  it  that  this  work  of 
Wendell  Phillips  for  freedom,  for  equality,  for  the 
ballot,  shall  not  be  destroyed,  shall  not  be  defeated, 


42  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

shall  not  be  circumvented,  so  long  as  we  shall  live 
and  our  children  and  our  children's  children. 


The  last  of  the  four  addresses  was  by  Michael  J. 
Jordan,  Esq.,  introduced  by  Acting  Mayor  Coleman 
as  an  able  Boston  attorney,  prominent  in  the  work 
for  home  rule  for  Ireland  and  as  president  of  the 
Boston  Central  Branch  of  the  United  Irish  League. 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  43 


ADDRESS 

BY  MICHAEL  J.  JORDAN 


On  the  30th  of  March,  1870,  President  Grant 
proclaimed  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  to  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States.  This  amendment 
removed  the  last  barrier  to  the  freedom  of  the 
colored  race.  One  of  the  greatest  reforms  had  been 
perfected;  the  program  of  abolition  was  accom- 
plished. The  actors  in  that  great  reform  saw  their 
work  done.  They  might  well  claim  that  they  had 
done  their  full  duty,  but  Phillips  modestly  esti- 
mated the  result  of  his  own  work  in  this  great  charter 
of  freedom  by  saying  that  it  had  taught  him  faith  in 
human  nature. 

And  the  great  mind  of  Phillips  realized  that  a 
principle  only  had  been  established,  and  his  great 
heart  felt  that  he  had  reached  merely  a  new  stepping- 
stone  on  the  road  of  human  progress.  After  thirty 
years  of  toil  and  difficulties  which  would  have  dis- 
heartened most  men,  Phillips  announced  his  new 
program  in  the  following  words:  "Welcome  new 
duties.  We  sheathe  no  sword;  we  only  turn  the 
front  of  the  army  upon  a  new  foe." 

With  such  a  belief  in  the  hopes  and  destinies  of 
mankind,  with  such  a  record  of  past  achievement 
and  with  such  a  new  program,  Phillips  immediately 


44  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

turned  himself  to  the  next  great  crying  questions  of 
the  day.  He  had  been  blessed  in  many  ways  in 
his  career.  He  joined  a  robust  body  to  a  brilliant 
mind.  He  had  the  satisfaction  of  a  home  life  unsur- 
passed in  its  beauty,  devotion  and  pathos.  It  was 
his  own  surroundings  that  influenced  his  next  public 
step. 

He  early  appeared  before  the  committee  of  the 
Legislature  demanding  the  right  of  the  ballot  for 
women.  It  was  impossible  for  Phillips  to  see  merely 
half  of  the  truth.  He  realized  that  freedom  under 
proper  bounds  was  the  great  panacea  for  the  evils 
which  beset  all  governments.  And  if  freedom  was 
necessary,  half  of  it  could  not  be  sufficient.  He 
therefore  demanded  it  in  its  entirety,  and  insisted 
that  the  right  of  voting  should  be  given  to  women. 

However  people  may  disagree  about  the  need  of 
this  reform,  it  must  be  a  striking  lesson  to  all  stu- 
dents of  political  history  that  such  a  keen  mind  as 
that  of  Wendell  Phillips  gave  his  fiat  not  only  to  the 
right  but  to  the  need  of  women  exercising  the  ballot. 
It  was  not  only  that  he  thought  women  in  the 
higher  spheres  of  social  and  economic  life  might 
benefit  the  world  when  they  obtained  the  right  to 
speak  their  mind  through  the  ballot,  but  what 
attracted  him  and  determined  his  action  most 
strongly  was  the  condition  of  the  women  crowded  in 
the  great  industrial  centers  of  New  England. 

Labor  should  be  free.  To  make  labor  free  one- 
half  the  laborers  now  without  the  franchise  should 
be  given  the  right  to  vote.  He  claimed  that  the  dis- 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  45 

franchisee!  half  were  women.  He  therefore  joined  in 
his  mind  the  labor  movement,  the  franchise  move- 
ment and  the  temperance  movement.  They  were 
the  great  trinity  of  principles  which  he  now  inscribed 
upon  his  flag.  It  was  a  habit  in  those  days  among 
his  enemies  to  refer  to  Phillips  as  a  dreamer,  but 
whoever  studies  his  speeches  on  the  labor  movement 
will  soon  see  that  he  was  one  of  the  first  of  the 
modern  reformers  who  really  understood  the  needs 
of  the  working  classes.  He  was  certainly  one  of  the 
first  who  outlined  a  practical  program  for  the 
advancement  of  the  workingman.  He  was  one  of 
the  first  who  saw  the  dangers  of  large  corporations 
and  who  suggested  remedies. 

It  was  a  curious  coincidence  that  Phillips  in 
America  and  an  Irish  economist,  Professor  Kearns, 
were  the  first  two  public  men  in  modern  times  to 
write  not  only  intelligently  but  sympathetically  on 
the  questions  of  trade  unions.  The  world  a  few 
years  ago  was  startled  by  the  claims  which  Lloyd- 
George  advanced  upon  the  wealth  of  the  British 
empire.  Wendell  Phillips  forty  years  ago  outlined 
a  similar  plan.  He  challenged  the  opponents  of  the 
labor  movement  by  saying:  "We  will  crumble  up 
wealth  by  making  it  unprofitable  to  the  rich."  "Is 
it  just  or  is  it  safe,"  he  said,  "that  man  should  be 
less  valuable  than  money?"  For  the  purpose  of 
insuring  the  laborers  of  America  constant  employ- 
ment and  for  building  up  the  infant  industries  of 
the  country  Phillips  proclaimed  himself  a  protec- 
tionist. It  seems  at  first  sight  difficult  to  understand 


46  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

the  opponent  of  monopoly  as  a  protectionist.  But 
Phillips  saw  that  neither  peace  nor  freedom  could 
exist  in  the  country  if  there  was  not  permanent 
employment  for  the  masses.  And  permanent  em- 
ployment for  the  masses  in  his  time  at  least  could 
only  be  secured  by  the  large  development  of  indus- 
tries. His  answer  to  the  free  traders  he  gave  in 
some  such  form  as  this:  "Free  trade  is  a  splendid 
principle.  Any  boy  can  understand  when  a  principle 
is  right.  But  it  takes  three-score  years  and  ten  to 
determine  when  that  principle  can  be  tried,  when 
it  should  be  modified,  when  it  should  be  dropped. 
Until  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  becomes  not  merely 
a  beautiful  hymn  but  the  practical  guide  of  business 
men  in  life/7  he  said,  "free  trade  was  impossible." 
O'Reilly  justly  estimated  the  great  debt  of  gratitude 
which  the  working  people  owed  Phillips,  as  well  as 
the  great  accomplishment  of  Phillips'  life  in  advo- 
cating the  rights  of  labor,  when  he  said: 

"And  the  greatest  of  all  are  the  unknown  wreaths  on  his  coffin 

lid  laid  down 

By  the  toil-stained  hands  of  workmen,  their  sob,  their  kiss, 
his  crown." 

No  call  came  to  him  from  any  cause  that  was 
just  that  he  did  not  receive  with  sympathy.  To 
the  struggle  of  the  Cretans,  trying  then  to  throw 
off  the  yoke  of  the  Turks,  he  sent  a  message  burning 
with  the  love  of  freedom.  To  consolidated  Italy 
he  sent  a  message  glorifying  the  new  country  which 
had  been  built  up  upon  the  cradle  of  Christianity. 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  47 

He  recognized  the  claims  of  Italy,  the  mother  of 
the  intellectual  awakening  of  Europe,  and  hailed 
her  as  "my  country."  When  Ireland  called, 
Phillips  answered  with  all  the  chivalry  of  the 
unstained  champion  of  freedom.  The  service 
Phillips  rendered  the  Irish  race  in  Ireland  and 
America  by  his  splendid  espousal  of  Ireland's  cause 
can  scarcely  be  overestimated. 

Forty-five  years  are  merely  a  speck  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  country.  In  the  era  of  thought  forty- 
five  years  sometimes  mark  a  long  step.  Forty-five 
years  ago  the  real  facts  concerning  Ireland  were  as 
little  known  as  are  to-day  the  condition  of  the  troops 
that  are  fighting  on  the  peninsula  of  Gallipoli. 
England  always  censored  Irishmen.  The  public 
knew  nothing  of  Ireland's  struggle,  and  sympathized 
little  with  Ireland's  claims.  Although  the  streets  of 
Boston,  almost  from  its  earliest  days,  had  re-echoed 
to  the  weary  tread  of  the  Irish  emigrant,  forty-five 
years  ago  Boston  knew  nothing  of  the  antecedent 
or  actual  conditions  which  sent  the  emigrants  in 
thousands  to  our  shores.  It  was  then  with 
unbounded  assurance  that  James  Anthony  Froude 
reached  Boston  in  the  early  70's.  How  little  now 
we  seem  to  be  able  to  understand  that  a  professor 
of  the  University  of  Oxford  should  travel  across 
the  ocean  with  the  sole  purpose  of  blackening  the 
character  of  one  of  the  greatest  races  in  Europe. 
And  yet  that  was  Froude's  avowed  purpose.  He 
hoped  to  have  a  sympathetic  audience  in  Boston, 
but  one  man  made  it  impossible  for  him,  and  that 


48  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

man  was  the  immortal  Phillips.  There  is  not  in 
the  whole  range  of  human  history  a  more  inspiring 
spectacle  than  this  great  man,  the  descendant  of 
the  Puritans,  a  stanch  Protestant  in  his  beliefs, 
assuming  the  championship  of  a  race  that  was 
despised  for  its  faith  as  well  as  for  its  courage. 
Phillips  answered  Froude  and  drove  him  from 
Boston. 

Froude  stated  in  his  address:  "We  have  tried 
to  form  a  government  for  thirty  years;  our  alter- 
native now  is  extermination."  The  thought  of 
exterminating  a  race  that  had  produced  countless 
saints  and  martyrs,  that  had  given  to  the  modern 
world  the  greatest  champions  of  human  liberty 
in  the  person  of  Burke  and  O'Connell,  revolted 
the  nature  and  fired  the  soul  of  Phillips.  His 
prompt  reply  to  the  traducer  of  a  people  will  forever 
preserve  immortal  the  name  and  memory  of  Phillips 
in  the  archives  of  Irish  history.  By  his  answer  to 
Froude  he  merits  the  gratitude  of  liberty-loving 
people  all  over  the  world. 

Phillips'  acquaintance  with  Ireland  was  not  a 
new  one.  He  had  early  learned  the  genius  of  the 
race  in  the  difficult  work  of  sculpture;  for  Martin 
Milmore,  a  native  of  the  County  of  Sligo,  Ireland, 
had  made  the  only  bust  of  Phillips.  Phillips  had 
visited  Ireland.  He  sat  under  O'Connell.  He  was 
afterwards  destined  to  know  O'Reilly  as  a  friend, 
and  to  appreciate  Parnell  as  one  of  the  greatest 
leaders  of  his  day.  No  one  ever  better  understood 
them,  or  more  ably  taught  to  the  world  not  only 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  49 

the  great  genius  of  O'Connell  but  the  gratitude 
which  the  world  owes  to  O'Connell  for  his  great 
efforts  on  behalf  of  mankind. 

If  any  other  sympathizer  with  the  destinies  of 
Ireland  had  delivered  the  eulogy  which  Phillips 
made  on  O'Connell  his  enthusiasm  might  have 
provoked  some  criticism.  Phillips  was  not  a  man, 
however,  to  allow  his  reason  to  be  influenced  by 
emotions  only.  His  analysis  of  O'Connell's  life 
and  labors  is  a  logical,  philosophical  treatise  on  the 
power  of  agitation,  and  on  the  genius  of  its  great 
creator,  O'Connell.  What  do  we  Americans  owe 
to  O'Connell?  I  shall  ask  Phillips  himself  to  tell 
us.  He  tells  us  that  O'Connell  anticipated  the 
wisdom  of  Lincoln  in  proclaiming  the  government 
of  the  people.  He  tells  us  that  he  forged  the  great 
weapon  of  agitation  which  the  English  abolitionists 
adopted  and  which  Garrison  himself  carried  to  these 
shores.  He  taught  the  tyrants  on  the  throne  that 
they  could  not  withstand  the  marshaled  conscience 
of  the  people.  He  grafted  democracy  upon  the 
British  empire.  It  took  O'Connell  thirty  years, 
he  says,  of  patient  and  sagacious  labor  to  mold 
the  elements  whose  existence  no  man,  however 
wise,  discerned  before. 

It  was  not  merely  the  philosophy  of  O'ConnelPs 
methods  which  Phillips  admired,  but  he  saw  the 
greatness  of  O'ConnelPs  diplomacy.  Phillips  knew 
that  Ireland  as  a  small  entity  could  neither  attract 
nor  hold  the  attention  of  the  world.  He  therefore 
saw  the  wisdom  of  O'ConnelPs  movement  in  asso- 


50  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

ciating  Ireland  with  the  great  reform  movements 
in  England,  with  anti-slavery,  with  the  corn  laws 
and  the  ballot  laws.  "If 'I  were  an  Irishman/' 
says  Phillips,  "I  would  cleave  to  the  empire/' 
The  policy  which  John  E.  Redmond,  the  leader  of 
the  Irish  parliamentary  party,  is  to-day  advocating 
is  that  which  O'Connell  inaugurated  and  which 
Phillips  approved.  No  man  has  ever  paid  higher 
tribute  to  the  integrity  of  O'Connell  than  has  Wen- 
dell Phillips.  He  loved  to  quote  the  scenes  that 
took  place  in  the  House  of  Commons  when  O'Con- 
nell, all  alone  defying  the  Parliament  that  conquered 
Napoleon,  was  addressed  by  some  advocates  of 
slavery.  They  promised  him  twenty-eight  votes  on 
every  measure  pertaining  to  Ireland  if  he  would 
not  speak  against  slavery.  O'Connell  answered: 
"May  my  hand  forget  its  cunning,  and  my  tongue 
cleave  to  the  roof  of  my  mouth,  if  to  save  Ireland, 
even  Ireland,  I  forget  the  negro  one  single  hour." 
Wendell  Phillips  himself  has  said  that  no  genius 
can  make  marble  more  speaking  than  the  life  of  a 
great  man  and  the  scenes  of  his  labors.  Why, 
then,  do  we  commemorate  Phillips'  life  by  the 
erection  to  him  of  this  magnificent  monument? 
It  is  because  the  City  of  Boston  wishes  that  this 
marble  should  speak  to  the  generations  yet  to  come 
of  a  life  of  unsullied  devotion  to  the  welfare  of  the 
human  race.  The  Boston  that  stood  by  his  cradle, 
which  nursed  and  mothered  him  and  wept  over 
his  bier,  has  erected  this  monument  to  speak  not 
only  to  the  student  and  to  the  statesman  but  to 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  51 

the  throbbing  masses  of  our  population.  She  wishes 
this  marble  to  bespeak  forever  the  life  of  the  noblest 
purpose  given  so  unselfishly  to  the  good  of  his 
fellow  man. 

Let  people  of  the  colored  race  take  their  chil- 
dren to  this  monument  as  to  a  shrine,  and  teach 
them  that  while  truth  and  justice  may  slumber 
they  can  never  die.  The  people  of  Irish  birth  and 
blood,  as  they  pass  this  monument,  will  pour  out 
their  hearts  in  thankfulness  to  the  Creator  that 
He  gave  to  their  new  home  such  a  historian  of  their 
race  and  such  a  defender  of  their  cause. 

Every  good  man  who  looks  upon  this  monument 
will  learn  from  it  the  duty  of  perseverance,  even 
against  overwhelming  odds,  when  fighting  the  cause 
of  humanity  and  justice. 

The  descendant  of  the  same  New  England  blood 
which  ran  in  Phillips'  veins  will  ever  feel  proud  of 
the  institutions  which  have  given  to  America 
such  a  spotless  champion  of  truth  and  liberty.  And 
may  the  coming  generations  imbibe  from  this  monu- 
ment the  lesson  of  the  great  reformer's  life: 

"The  right  to  be  free,  the  hope  to  be  just, 
And  the  guard  against  selfish  greed." 


52  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS 

BY  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON,  JR. 


Out  from  the  Ages'  bloody  scroll 
The  names  of  kings  and  soldiers  roll, 
Leaving  a  scanty  page  to  tell 
What  fate  the  myriads  befell. 

The  generations  all  relate 
A  struggle  blurred  by  strife  and  hate, 
Of  mankind's  tortuous  ascent 
Towards  Liberty's  enfranchisement. 

Primeval  man  of  savage  lust, 

Who  knew  no  God  of  Love  to  trust, 

Has  now  become  a  citizen 

Who  shares  his  rights  with  other  men. 

The  bridge  that  spans  this  far  advance 
Is  no  mere  edifice  of  chance, 
But,  stone  by  stone,  and  dream  by  dream, 
It  rose  as  mankind  grew  supreme. 

Aspiring  towards  the  stars,  it  stands 
A  monument  to  minds  and  hands 
That  in  each  age  have  sought  to  free 
The  world  from  sin  and  slavery. 

The  new  world  that  Columbus  found 
Is  Freedom's  richest  seeding  ground ; 
Its  champions  have  ever  stood 
As  prophets  of  man's  brotherhood. 

To-day,  a  champion  we  greet, 
Whose  purpose  never  knew  defeat; 
Whose  reasoned  words  in  purest  flow 
Could  flash  with  lightning's  vivid  glow. 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  53 

An  orator  in  Nature's  scheme, 
With  Human  Rights  his  lofty  theme, 
He  cast  his  lot  with  those  who  gave 
Their  lives  to  liberate  the  Slave. 

Proscribed  and  hated,  scorned  and  jeered, 
Erect  he  stood,  nor  ever  feared 
The  angry  outbursts  of  the  mob; 
He  only  heard  the  negro's  sob. 

He  lived  to  see  his  dreams  come  true ; 
Scorn  into  adulation  grew ; 
Yet  trumpet-like  came  his  appeal 
When  he  might  serve  the  public  weal. 

Welcome,  great  soul,  to  thy  loved  streets 
Where  Boston's  civic  heart  still  beats 
In  deep  response  and  sympathy; 
Herself  she  honors,  hon'ring  thee. 


54  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 


HISTORY    OF  WENDELL    PHILLIPS   STATUE 


November  28,  1911. —  Mayor  John  F.  Fitzgerald 
sent  a  letter  to  the  City  Council,  suggesting  some 
" permanent  memorial"  to  Wendell  Phillips,  as  sug- 
gestion of  Councilor  E.  E.  Smith. 

November  29,  1911. —  In  Faneuil  Hall,  at  closing 
session  of  Phillips  Centenary  celebration  by  the 
National  Independent  Political  (now  Equal  Rights) 
League  and  New  England  Suffrage  League,  Mayor 
Fitzgerald  asks  citizens  to  form  a  committee  to  pro- 
mote a  Phillips  Memorial.  Motion  made  by  W.  M. 
Trotter,  secretary,  for  city  and  state  to  erect  a  statue 
and  for  chairman,  M.  J.  Jordan,  to  appoint  com- 
mittee. Committee  of  three  appointed,  M.  J.  Jordan, 
E.  T.  Morris,  W.  M.  Trotter,  to  organize  a  memo- 
rial committee  to  cooperate  with  Mayor. 

November  30,  1911.—  William  D.  Brigham  added 
to  the  committee  and  Brigham,  Trotter  and  Jordan 
begin  campaign,  letter  writing  and  seeing  members 
of  City  Council,  etc. 

December  9,  1911. —  William  D.  Brigham  has 
letter  in  Boston  Herald  December  12,  1911. 
Boston  Art  Commission  tell  Mayor  they  plan  a 
statuary  mall  along  Charles  street  on  Public  Garden 
as  suitable  place  for  proposed  Phillips  statue. 

January  9,  1912. —  By  invitation  of  the  Mayor 
five  of  memorial  committee,  Hon.  A.  E.  Pillsbury, 


SCULPTOR'S    MODEL    AS    ACCEPTED    BY   THE    BOSTON    ART   COMMISSION,    AND  FROM 
WHICH    THE    BRONZE    STATUE   WAS    CAST. 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  55 

Mr.  F.  J.  Garrison,  M.  J.  Jordan,  Esq.,  Mr.  William 
D.  Brigham  and  Mr.  William  Monroe  Trotter, 
appear  before  Art  Commission  and  argue  for  full 
length  statue. 

March  27,  1912. —  Memorial  Committee  met  in 
Aldermanic  Chamber  with  Mayor  Fitzgerald  and 
Art  Commission  and  ask  for  heroic  size,  outdoor 
statue.  Mayor  agrees  to  ask  City  Council  to  appro- 
priate $20,000  for  statue.  Committee  on  permanent 
organization  of  Wendell  Phillips  Memorial  Associa- 
tion appointed:  William  D.  Brigham,  chairman; 
W.  M.  Trotter,  secretary;  Dr.  A.  M.  Abbott,  J.  E. 
Savage,  M.  J.  Jordan.  From  this  came  the  Wendell 
Phillips  Memorial  Association. 

April  14,  1912. —  Mayor  authorized  Art  Commis- 
sion to  give  prizes  for  a  design  for  statue. 

June  24,  1912. —  City  Council  vote  on  appropria- 
tion of  $20,000  from  tax  levy  for  Wendell  Phillips 
statue.  Messrs.  Brigham,  Jordan  and  Trotter  tele- 
graph thanks  to  Mayor,  who  was  in  Baltimore,  Md. 


56  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 


DEDICATION  OF  WENDELL  PHILLIPS  STATUE 

FROM  "THE  GUARDIAN" 


A  few  minutes  before  six  o'clock  Monday  after- 
noon, July  5,  1915,  the  veil  fell  from  the  $20,000 
bronze  statue  of  Wendell  Phillips  in  the  Public 
Garden,  and  a  crowd  of  from  5,000  to  6,000 
acclaimed  with  cheers  and  patriotic  song  Daniel 
Chester  French's  almost  speaking  memorial  of 
Boston's  famous  orator  and  abolitionist. 

As  the  sun  was  sinking  behind  rain  clouds  in  the 
west,  Master  John  C.  Phillips,  Jr.,  six  years  old,  the 
great  grandnephew  of  Wendell  Phillips,  the  man  who 
declared  that  if  he  lived  long  enough  he  would  make 
Boston  streets  too  pure  to  bear  the  footsteps  of  a 
slave,  supported  by  his  father,  Dr.  John  C.  Phillips  of 
Wenham,  Mass.,  pulled  the  cord  releasing  the  mantle 
which  for  several  weeks  has  veiled  the  statue  of 
Phillips  on  the  Public  Garden,  and  the  noble  bronze 
stood  revealed,  gazing  over  the  throng  of  citizens 
assembled  for  its  dedication. 

As  the  folds  fell  away  from  the  figure  of  the 
great  abolitionist,  " Glory,  Glory,  Hallelujah!"  burst 
from  a  chorus  of  colored  women  gathered  from 
Boston  churches,  and  then  the  first  song  gave  way 
to  "America." 

Thirty-one  years  after  his  death,  fifty  years  after 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  57 

the  victory  of  the  army  of  the  Union  over  the  slave- 
holders, a  half-century  after  the  enactment  of  the 
Thirteenth  Amendment  to  the  Federal  Constitution, 
a  statue  was  unveiled  of  that  marvelous  Boston 
orator,  that  bright  star  in  the  constellation  of  super- 
lative abolitionists,  greatest  of  all  after  the  Eman- 
cipation Proclamation,  unveiled  in  the  city  of  his 
birth,  the  scene  of  his  wondrous  labors  for  humanity, 
a  statue  erected  in  recognition  of  his  worth  and 
greatness  by  the  city  government  itself. 

Though  Boston  was  guilty  of  neglect  and  tardiness, 
as  if  by  the  hand  of  Providence,  the  consummation 
came  so  appropriately  in  this  semicentennial  year 
of  abolition,  and  on  Independence  Day,  set  aside  to 
mark  the  issuance  of  that  document  which  Phillips 
declared  gave  every  human  being  beneath  the  flag  a 
right  to  freedom  and  equality. 

It  was  a  memorable  occasion,  from  the  time  when 
the  man  who  as  a  boy  had  loved  and  revered  Wendell 
Phillips  and  honored  his  memory  ever  since,  Mr. 
William  D.  Brigham,  was  privileged  to  inaugurate 
the  exercises  to  unveil  a  statue  which  he  as  secretary 
of  the  Wendell  Phillips  Memorial  Association  had 
done  so  much  to  bring  about,  until  this  same  man, 
seeing  the  triumph  of  his  life  accomplished,  was 
called  out  upon  the  platform  to  acknowledge  the 
cheers  of  the  multitude  as  they  stood  looking  into 
the  triumphant  face  of  the  "  silver-tongued  orator  of 
abolition "  in  bronze,  while  the  sun  sank  behind 
the  clouds  which  had  parted  to  let  down  the  sun- 
light only  when  the  hour  for  dedication  had  come. 


58  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

Except  for  the  comforts  which  the  heavy  showers 
prevented,  there  was  nothing  to  mar;  every  feature 
was  fit  and  appropriate.  Fervent  was  the  prayer 
by  Rev.  Montrose  W.  Thornton,  pastor  of  historic 
Charles  Street  Church  and  also  chairman  of  the 
executive  committee  of  the  local  Equal  Rights  League 
branch.  Sterling  and  practical  the  tribute  of  the 
Acting  Mayor,  George  W.  Coleman,  a  man  of  Wen- 
dell Phillips'  principles,  as  was  every  speaker. 

Illuminating  and  forceful  was  the  life  story  by 
Secretary  Brigham. 

Sweet  and  inspiring  was  the  singing  by  the  colored 
singers,  led  by  Dr.  Walter  O.  Taylor  and  J.  Sherman 
Jones,  and  the  music  by  the  brass  band  of  Company 
L,  Sixth  Regiment,  of  Massachusetts  Militia.  Pic- 
turesque and  touching  was  the  encomium  by  the 
only  survivor  of  New  England  abolitionists,  Frank 
Sanborn,  now  eighty-three  years  old,  still  active, 
a  coworker  with  Phillips.  Earnest  and  unqualified 
was  the  praise  by  the  spokesman  for  colored  Ameri- 
cans; William  Monroe  Trotter,  himself  a  devotee 
laboring  to  save  the  fruits  of  Phillips'  labors,  the 
hero  his  father's  friend.  Fired  with  eloquence  born 
of  love  was  the  eulogy  of  Ireland's  friend  and  the 
friend  of  all  oppressed,  by  Michael  J.  Jordan,  son  of 
O'Connell's  island  home.  Tuneful  and  noble  the 
paean  of  the  poet  of  the  occasion,  grandson  of  Phil- 
lips' party  leader,  bearing  his  name,  William  Lloyd 
Garrison.  Beautiful  the  unveiling  by  the  handsome, 
sturdy  boy  of  the  Phillips  family  blood,  John  C. 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  59 

Phillips,  Jr.  Every  participant  was  an  emulator 
of  the  "  Prophet  of  Liberty,  Champion  of  the 
Slave." 

Not  since  the  enactment  of  the  Fifteenth  Amend- 
ment, Phillips'  great  work,  have  so  many  assembled 
at  an  occasion  for  the  presentation  of  the  cause  of 
freedom  for  the  colored  American  in  Massachusetts. 

The  monument,  a  masterpiece  by  Daniel  Chester 
French,  the  sculptor,  represents  the  great  aboli- 
tionist standing  at  a  reading  desk,  his  right  hand 
resting  upon  the  desk,  his  left  outstretched  and 
holding  a  bit  of  a  broken  fetter.  Upon  the  marble 
background  above  the  head  of  the  statue  are  the 
words:  "Whether  in  chains  or  in  laurels,  liberty 
knows  nothing  but  victories."  On  the  pedestal  in 
front  are  the  words  in  raised  bronze  letters : 

WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

1811-1884 

Prophet  of  Liberty 

Champion  of  the  Slave 

On  the  reverse  side  of  the  background  is  this 
quotation  from  Phillips:  "I  love  inexpressibly  these 
streets  of  Boston,  over  whose  pavements  my  mother 
held  up  tenderly  my  baby  feet,  and  if  God  grants  me 
time  enough  I  will  make  them  too  pure  to  bear  the 
footsteps  of  a  slave." 

Owing  to  the  location,  facing  Boylston  street  and 
about  200  feet  from  Charles  street  and  Park  square, 
the  great  crowd  flowed  across  Boylston  street  and  all 


60  WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

around  the  monument  on  the  Public  Garden.  The 
little  stand  in  front  of  the  monument  could  accommo- 
date only  about  100,  including  the  speakers  and  the 
principal  invited  guests. 

The  cosmopolitanism  of  Wendell  Phillips  was  well 
illustrated  in  the  exercises,  in  the  speakers  and  in 
the  character  of  the  crowd. 

There  were  three  venerable  Germans  who  were 
part  of  the  bodyguard  of  Wendell  Phillips  at  the 
time  when  he  was  escorted  to  and  from  his  house 
in  the  turbulent  abolition  days.  These  men  were 
George  Gramlich,  Henry  Foss  and  John  Koch, 
members  of  the  old  German  Turnverein,  and  they 
laid  a  wreath  on  the  monument. 

Dr.  George  Galvin  also  laid  a  wreath  on  the 
monument  because  of  Wendell  Phillips'  great  inter- 
est in  the  labor  movement.  There  were  present 
many  women  suffragists  because  of  Wendell  Phil- 
lips' great  work  for  that  cause.  They  placed  a 
wreath  on  the  monument  some  days  previous. 

Finally  there  were  many  of  the  eminent  repre- 
sentatives of  the  colored  race,  for  whom  Phillips  did 
his  greatest  work  —  the  work  which  the  monument 
is  intended  to  symbolize. 

Mr.  Thomas  P.  Taylor,  one  of  Phillips'  body- 
guards, had  a  platform  seat. 

Among  the  out-of-town  guests  on  the  platform 
were  Congressman  William  S.  Greene  of  Fall  River. 
The  color  guard  was  from  the  Woman's  Relief 
Corps  of  the  Robert  A.  BeU  Post,  134,  Dr.  Alice  W. 
McKane,  president,  with  three  others. 


MEMORIAL  STATUE.  61 

And  finally  Acting  Mayor  Coleman  presented 
Mr.  Jordan,  who  moved  a  vote  of  thanks  to  Mr. 
Brigham  for  his  services  for  the  statue  and  unveiling. 
Mr.  Trotter  seconded  it  and  Acting  Mayor  Coleman 
asked  ratification  by  three  cheers  which  he  led  and 
the  people  gave  with  a  will. 

Then  the  people  crowded  up  to  the  statue  and 
lingered  about  till  darkness  came  on. 


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N9  627639 

E449 
Boston.  P56 

Exercises  at  the       B6 
dedication  of  the 
statue  of  Wendell 
Phillips. 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
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